I have managed to download the .ipa
file for an iOS application Pythonista3. I like it so much, and find it so useful, that I am trying to run it on my MacBook; bigger screen, better keyboard, et cetera. I have figured that the way to go is the Xcode simulator.
Firstly, I have the Pythonista3.app
sitting on my desktop. I run in the terminal:
xcrun simctl install C7F3CA5B-3F59-49F3-986C-4C7C43D8BFE6 "~/Desktop/Pythonista3.app"
Note that I am aiming to run this on the iPad Pro Gen. 3 (12.9 in.)
All is fine: The app installs, completes, with a little dot by the name. I click it however, and it just about enters full screen (animations) before it closes (no animations), and I am left with a home screen staring at me.
I have tried installing it programmatically, with the verbose option set:
xcrun -v simctl install C7F3CA5B-3F59-49F3-986C-4C7C43D8BFE6 "~/Desktop/Pythonista3.app"
With the following output (terminal)
xcrun: note: PATH = '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin'
xcrun: note: SDKROOT = '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk'
xcrun: note: TOOLCHAINS = ''
xcrun: note: DEVELOPER_DIR = '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer'
xcrun: note: XCODE_DEVELOPER_USR_PATH = ''
xcrun: note: xcrun_db = '/var/folders/22/vc4mhyq143nc34kzl_n6v3j80000gn/T/xcrun_db'
xcrun: note: xcrun via simctl (xcrun)
xcrun: note: database key is: simctl|/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.14.sdk||/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer|
xcrun: note: lookup resolved in '/var/folders/22/vc4mhyq143nc34kzl_n6v3j80000gn/T/xcrun_db' : '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/simctl'
There was also some very interesting behaviour when I tried to run the Pythonista3
executable (child of Pythonista3.app
) instead: Operation not permitted
were roughly what the terminal told me. I actually went the whole way and (temporarily) disabled System Integrity Protection via csrutil
, but even this didn't allow me to run the UNIX executable file.
I tried removing the armv7
dependency/requirement from Info.plist
without any benefit.
Might this be a code signing issue? I have heard of using a -SimulateApplication
option on a Simulator but have not found out properly how to do this (Xcode updates confusing stuff).
I Also know there are a heck of a load of voices saying that running iOS apps on a MacBook is just not possible, but I believe there is a way, somehow...
Can somebody please help me load the app onto the Simulator, and make it run without crashing before it gets past the LaunchScreen.storyboard?